Today I took pictures on my morning break. (I work from home.) Now tonight after work I can just “be” in the garden.
Our “office manager” took a short snooze.
I suppose this weekend I should finish cutting back the ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ scapes. They were so beautiful again this year. I don’t want them to spend energy going to seed.
Tonight I realized I never took a picture of the 18 ‘Marque Moon’ daylilies that bloomed all at once. I enjoyed them tremendously. I was thrilled that the whole wave had blooms today for the first time. I even “rescued” one from not reaching it’s full potential because it was wedged between two stems. I “freed” it – lol and it started to open. Yeay! But I didn’t take pictures. So out I went, after sunset, to see if I could capture it. Instead I scared a robin off its perch for the night. Then I really felt bad.
Maybe tomorrow.
This is the second time I’ve done this in four days, and I did it up north a month ago. I get caught up in the beauty, the whole big picture, the experience of being in the middle of it, and the last thing on my mind is to take a picture. It might be because a picture just can’t capture something that big.
The bees are really enjoying the hosta flowers, the butterflies and hummingbirds are flittering through. It is just all so beautiful. A camera can’t catch it all. I just have to experience it.
Well, here’s some I have captured over the last week. The blue mouse ears are done blooming, as are the gladiolas. But all of the daylilies are blooming at once now and it is … incredible.
The ‘Hush Little Baby’ daylilies I added last year are really a treat right now! I wish I had more! Maybe will divide in a couple years and start another wave going.
I have no love for mice, but I do have a love for ‘Blue Mouse Ears’ hostas. I love them all gardening season, but they are especially beautiful when they are all blooming. That started to happen a couple weeks ago
and they are now in full bloom.
If I had more space, I would “adopt” even more.
On the way home from our recent trip up north, my husband and I were talking about how different “gardens” are for us up north. He said something interesting – In the “city” we plant gardens to bring nature and beauty into our outdoor spaces. We long for it. Up north nature is already there, abundantly.
Every time we go up north new massive waves of flowers are blooming. We’ve seen some of those waves for years. The applicability of those experiences to what we are doing is now slowly dawning on me. Yes, the different waves were technically “planted” over time, but they are naturally all over – in fields, in the ditches, in the woods. I don’t need to create “garden” beauty up there. It’s already there for me to enjoy.
This last time the tiger lilies were blooming. I realized when we were on the way home I didn’t even take pictures. Wow! I was “in the moment”. I just enjoyed their beauty, for long walks, and for miles and miles of driving.
Perspective is coming forward. My tiny attempts to bring “garden” beauty to our land up north have quickly been overtaken by the massive natural beauty that is already there – a gigantic garden, planted over thousands of years, doing its thing naturally and with more beauty than I could ever put together. My part as a gardener in that environment is to realize it and just enjoy it.
Now, if we ever move up there, we may want to grow some food, and that will take more work. And at the homesite area we are slowly clearing we eventually want to have a clover “lawn”. But that is a topic for another day.
Back at our townhome, I confirmed what I suspected – I missed the first ‘South Seas’ daylily blooms of the season. But before we headed up north I caught our first ‘Purple D’ Oro’ daylily blooms, and when we came back we caught the first ‘Just Plum Happy’ daylily blooms
along with a couple ‘South Seas’ blooms.
Today I caught the first ‘Hush Little Baby’ bloom
and the first red daylily bloom (in the way back)
along with over a dozen ‘Purple D’ Oro blooms.
And after work, after our dog got his daily walk, I spent an hour putzing in the gardens – trimmming here, weeding there. It’s all good.
I pulled open the blinds this morning and peeked out hoping to see our first daylily of the season. I suspected it would open today. Last night it looked like this.
It took my breath away.
Close behind it are two more just starting to open.
Today I was reminded of one more extra benefit of daylilies – they bloom and bloom and bloom and bloom and then they go to seed and THEN, in fall, I harvest the seeds and then cut them back when I cut back the rest of the garden. Soooo easy!
I absolutely love the massive bloom of asian lilies. They are gorgeous! But when they are done blooming I trim them back before they go to seed, some in back parts of a fully stacked garden, sometimes precariously balanced to avoid harming other plants, in the July heat.
Today was that day. It’s very much worth it. Daylilies are just a wee bit easier.
Up north we traded seeing waves of purple lupines alongside the roads in June for fields of yellow buttercups and white daisies in July.
(The haze is from the Canadian wildfires.)
Back at the townhouse, we are starting to trade asian lily blooms for gladiola blooms.
There are two sets of asian lilies still blooming. The rest will be trimmed back to greens tomorrow. I do not harvest those seeds.
The potted gladiolas are starting to bloom. The hummingbirds love them, and we enjoy seeing them visit. For now we have put away the feeders until fall. There is an abundance of natural food coming up in the garden.
The waves of asian lilies are continuing. While the red asian lilies have pretty much faded, and the early pink ones have hit their peak, others are just starting to boom.
And over the weekend dozens of daylily scapes appeared. Cannot wait for the first bloom. What will it be?
Over the weekend the asian lilies continued to bloom. Last night we had a doozy of a thunderstorm, for hours and hours. They got a little droopy with all the water, but still look beautiful!
Susan's Daily Garden 